This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:00] A few of us men were here yesterday at a seminar about the financial leadership of our family. And we learned that for the man, the buck stops with you. You're called to be the provider for your family. And one of the things we got to talking about at this seminar was life insurance, the idea that perhaps the man would want to provide for his family, even if something were to happen to him and he were to die. That his family would still be financially cared for, which I think is a great idea for all husbands and dads to consider. And I remember the day that I was convicted that I needed to perhaps consider what would happen to my wife and with our young children if I were to die. And so I started the process of getting life insurance. And if you ever gone through this, it's like a medical exam and they ask you all these invasive questions about your personal life and the history of disease in your family. And they want to find out everything about you. And you might be surprised to know that the life insurance department at Triple A. is willing to risk an incredible amount of money that this guy right here is going to keep living for a long time. In fact, I remember with a little bit of pride, I guess, the day that I went in and told my wife, hey, if anything ever happens to me, you're going to enjoy a quality of life that you would never know while I was alive. I cannot believe they're willing to cover us for this much money for that little payment a month. You could get that much. I mean, definitely the best thing that's going to happen to that Blakey family finances is me dying. And that's where we're at. And I was telling this to my wife and I was feeling a great sense of like I had provided for our family. And when I found out is that my wife would actually prefer for me to stay alive, which was a very sweet thing to find out that what my wife actually wants is not some insurance policy that may come into play in the future.

[00:02:06] But what she actually wants me to do is to talk with her and to listen to her and to share life with her right now, to give of myself and to share life with her. I think the way a lot of people think about Christianity is like it's some insurance policy for the future, like, oh, OK.

[00:02:28] So if there's a holy God in heaven and I'm a sinner and I'm going to end up being judge separated from God and Jesus came down and gave his life for me and died for my sins and rose again, I guess I should believe in Jesus so I can go to heaven. That's what people think the right response is to Christianity, some kind of death insurance like. So I'll still live even if I die. That's not the right response.

[00:02:52] What God really wants is you wants your life right now is what he wants. He wants you to love him right now.

[00:03:00] Go to Romans chapter 12, verse one, page nine hundred and forty seven. If he got one of our Bibles and it's going to tell us the response that we should have to the mercy of God. What is the right response when you understand the love of God to send his son Jesus to die for us, how should we respond? And it's not some life insurance policy for the future. It is a giving your life away right now. And so we're taking a break from the gospel of John. That's what we're working through on Sundays here at the church. But we saw such a powerful example of this woman, Mary, pouring out this pure nard ointment on Jesus a year salary worth of perfume being poured out on Jesus as an act of worship. That, Jesus said was a beautiful thing to him that prepared him for his burial. And then we saw that response just giving yourself in response to Jesus. And so we wanted to take time to look at this here in Romans Twelve, where it commands the right response to Jesus Christ. We're gonna study Romans Chapter twelve versus one to eight.

[00:04:09] Please follow along with me as I read it says I appeal to you, therefore, brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly unacceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship, and to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect, provided grace given to me. I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned for. As in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we. Many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.

[00:05:10] Let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes and generosity. The one who leads with zeal. The one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

[00:05:30] Now, if you go back to Romans, chapter 12, verse one, there's a key word that you should always look for when you're reading a passage like this, especially when we just jump into a passage in the middle of a book that we haven't been studying. Like Romans here and it says, I appeal to you. And then there's a keyword, therefore. And if you've been around church much, you've probably heard that when we come across the word, therefore, we should ask the question, what is it? Therefore, what is what is you referring to, therefore?

[00:05:59] And it says, based on the mercies of God brothers by the mercies of God. Therefore, because of the mercies of God. Well, what are you referring to? Are you referring to something in Chapter eleven or are Chapter 10? Really? This could be the biggest, therefore, in all of the Bible, because we think what it's referring to is all that we have learned in the Book of Romans so far. Romans Chapter one, two, eleven. All these things that God has done, indicative things that God has already done. I mean, if you study the Book of Romans, if you ever read it, it starts out very strongly with with the fact that God is obvious. Everyone should know there is a God, but people deny God because they want to sin.

[00:06:43] And it makes it very clear that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God and all of us will not be able to defend ourselves on the J of judgment because we are not perfect in holiness like God is.

[00:06:56] But as you get into Chapter three and four, it describes that God he judged his son, who was righteous so that he might be just and the justifier, that he might be righteous in his judgment of sin on Jesus, but also able to justify us and declare us righteous if we will put our faith in Jesus Christ.

[00:07:18] So instead of being condemned and separated from Christ from all of eternity, we will now be able to be with him where nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God and Jesus Christ, our Lord. Therefore, what is the response?

[00:07:36] Do you believe in and think, OK. Good. I'm set when I die, I'll go to heaven. I got my life insurance policy. That is what so many people think. They think, oh, great, I'm just going to receive the free gift. It's going to give me peace of mind and I'll keep on living my life the way I live.

[00:07:55] And here it says something radically different, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers by the mercies of God. Don't think about trying to gain life for yourself. No. Present your bodies as a sacrifice, it says.

[00:08:09] If Jesus really gave his life away in such a way for you, the only logical response is that you would give your life away for Jesus. That's a response. Is that how you think of being a Christian?

[00:08:23] Being a Christian means? I give my life away. I am a sacrifice, not someone who just dies and goes to heaven. No, this is a living sacrifice.

[00:08:33] Someone who puts themself up on the altar and you stay on that altar giving to Jesus. Day after day, your entire life until you die. You're pouring yourself out in worship to Jesus Christ.

[00:08:50] That's what it's talking about here.

[00:08:53] You know, here where to talk about church today. We're here to talk about what's your involvement in the church? Do you serve in the ministry? How do you contribute to the body of Christ? And I want you to think for a second. If Jesus came to a church like this, if Jesus was a man in the 21st century, if he was walking around to churches in the year 2016 in America, how would Jesus go to this church? I think he would go to this church. I think he would come in through these doors the same way that he came down to Earth, says that even the son of man. This is a verse that we've got it stored up here on the screen. It says, for even the son of man did not come to be served. But to what? I mean, if that's the Lord, if that's the boss, if that's the king, if that's the one who is all glory to his name and healing come to be served, but to serve, then who are we to think that we're here to receive service?

[00:09:54] Doesn't make sense. It does. It's not logical to look at the example of one who gave his life away for you. Let's finish the verse. No. But to give his life a ransom for many. You're going to watch Jesus give his life for you and turn that into some kind of life insurance policy that you can receive after you die. That is not the response that Romans 12 is calling us to it, saying, hey, if you can see Jesus given his life away for you, here's your response. Give your life away for Jesus Christ. Who are you giving your life away for? Who is going to be ransom? Who are the many that are benefiting from you pouring out your life as a sacrifice to God?

[00:10:42] Case, we've got a little acrostic going on here, serve as E. R. V. And I could tell right away when somebody saw that here this morning, they thought, oh, this is gonna be one of those cheesy sermons. But stick with me here, everybody. All right. Oh, stick with me. Let's start with the S here at the top. And here's what we want to do. We want to stay on the altar of sacrifice. That's what we want to do. We want to stay given our life away. Hopefully, you have had a moment in the past where you have decided that the response to Jesus is to turn from your life of sin, to deny yourself, to say I'm no longer living for me anymore.

[00:11:22] I'm no longer living my old way. We call that repentance. It's a change of mind. It's a turnaround. I'm not going to keep living for myself anymore. I'm on a turn. And by faith now, I'm going to live for Jesus Christ. I'm going to trust in him. I'm going to follow him.

[00:11:37] Hopefully, you have had a moment in your life where you realize the only response to Jesus that makes sense is to give my life away to him, to say he now calls the shots. He's now the boss. And I'm here just to serve whatever Jesus tells me to do. That's my that's my life now. Now, what can happen? What's sad to see is some people, they start out giving their life away and then they find out. What we all find out is that it's not easy to be a sacrifice.

[00:12:05] It's not easy to undergo the fire of testing and appar your life out on the altar of giving your life away. No, it's it's challenging. It's demanding. In fact, you end up giving your life away to people who don't seem to really care or appreciate what you're trying to do for them. And it ends up costing you a great deal. And it gets hard and you get weary. And sometimes you might want to take yourself back up off that altar and start thinking about yourself a little bit to repentance is a 180 degree turn where I abandon living for myself and I just give it all to follow Jesus Christ. And sometimes what people like to do is they like to do this 360 degree turn where I start giving my life away to Jesus. And then I realize that's pretty tough.

[00:12:49] And I go back and I start giving my life to myself, say, oh, I'll sign up to serve and I'll start helping somebody and all. Yeah. Hey, let's plant that church in Huntington Beach and let's go do it. And here we all are. This is great. And then it starts to get hard. And it's not what we expected. And it doesn't seem to be meeting my felt needs at the moment.

[00:13:10] And it's really easy to want to get off that altar. And to turn the focus back on yourself and aren't you glad that Jesus Christ didn't get down off that cross and consider himself?

[00:13:23] So you guys stay up on that altar, see, it might be one thing to die in a moment of glory for people and say that you love them, it's much harder to live for people and say that you love them day after day after day. Say.

[00:13:36] You got to give your life away.

[00:13:39] Even before he died, the apostle Paul, right before he was killed in second Timothy, chapter four, verse six, he said, I am already being poured out as a drink offering. I'm already giving my life away like it's no big deal. Basically, if I end up dying here because I've already given my life away, I'm already a sacrifice to worship God. That's the only response.

[00:14:05] And the word we learned this before here at the church that the word for pouring your life out, for giving your life away, the word there. And second, Timothy four, six and Philippians to 17, where it talks about pouring out your life for others for a sacrifice to God to worship him.

[00:14:22] The Greek word is spend dough. That's the Greek word. A word that we can all immediately translate and understand. Right. That I am here as a Christian person not to receive a life from Jesus Christ, but to give my life for Jesus Christ. I am here to spend the rest of my life pouring myself out as a sacrifice.

[00:14:47] Man, if you started out strong, if you're serving the Lord, if you can say honestly today that you've had that moment where you've turned from your old life and you've given your life to following Jesus. Just stay on that altar of sacrifice, my friend.

[00:15:01] Don't look back. Don't start considering yourself. Don't start putting your priorities above others. No, you've got to put others first. And most importantly, you've got to seek Christ first. Now, go back to Romans Chapter 12 here with me. And that that's the first verse. We kind of got into that a little bit last week, if you were here, that our response to Jesus is to give it's more blessed to give than to receive.

[00:15:26] To follow Jesus doesn't just mean I'm going to heaven when I die. That's not the emphasis here. It means I'm giving my life away on Earth. That's what it means. But then it says this.

[00:15:36] How are we going to keep that perspective where we don't start thinking about ourselves again? Well, Romans 12, to look at this verse with me, it says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the what? What does it say there by the renewal of your mind? Hey, now, somebody they knew we were preaching on this because we kind of cute it up last week and they sent me something this week that showed if you've got the Bible app, you know, it's just the basic app that looks like a Bible. A lot of people download it. The Bible app, if you have the Bible app and you live in America. Romans 12 two is the number one searched out for requested verse in America on the Bible app.

[00:16:16] This is a main verse that people are going to. And what a great verse to go to.

[00:16:21] Because this is how you're going to be able to keep giving your life away and not start thinking once again about yourself and your own natural, sinful desires, says do not be conformed to this world, implying that conformity to the world will naturally happen unless you stop it.

[00:16:40] OK. Now, people like to say that what we're doing here at CompassHB Bible Church is a form of brainwashing. And what we're trying to crank crank out here is those cookie cutter Christians. And anybody ever make cookies with the cookie cutter before? Right. And they all end up looking the same.

[00:16:53] That's what the world accuses us of. What scripture actually says here this morning is that the world is the one trying to oppress all of us into its mold. That's what it says, that the world is trying to press everyone into the mold of living for themself, of doing what they want, of being themself following their heart. And it might look different for different people. Sin, but it's the same idea for everybody. You be you. That's the message of the world. And if you do nothing, you will end up thinking that way you will end up being selfish. That's your natural default position. The world will press you into that mold and says you can't be conformed to this world. Now you have to be transformed. And you know, this Greek word here to four transformed. It's the word metamorphosis. Now we're thinking of elementary school science.

[00:17:43] Anybody with me on that? Right. We got the caterpillar. We got the cocoon. Then we have the beautiful butterfly. That's you. You're the butterfly that. And we're not gonna get that cheesy. But that's the idea here, that you're gonna be transformed, that you're gonna stop being this bug crawling around on the ground and you're going to start being this beautiful thing that flies around.

[00:18:09] And how is that metamorphosis? How is that transformation going to take place where you stop being selfish and you're able every day to give your life away?

[00:18:17] It's going to happen by the renewal of your mind.

[00:18:23] Going to have to get your thoughts renewed with every new day. You need a renewed mind. Let's get that down for E here on our serve. Every new day needs renewal. All of the time, I'm going to have to be reprograming my selfish self and the way the world's trying to get me to be, where I start thinking about me again when I get tired and hungry at the end of the day and I want to start thinking about myself. No, I need a renewed mind so I can be transformed so I can stay up on the altar there of sacrifice, so I can start to discern what God wants me to do with my life. The good things, the acceptable things, the perfect not what I want to do with my life, but God's will for my life. I need to get my mind renewed not only so I can know what God would want me to do, but the implication is here. So I would have the ability to do what God wants me to do. Turning me to Hebrews, Chapter five, just a few pages over to the right here in the New Testament, Hebrews Chapter five gives this idea of of renewal of mind. It says it in a different way. It's page 1003. If you got one of our Bibles and this is something that I would be encouraging every Christian to do. If you want to mature, you have to be, in God's word, more than once a week. Even if you come to church on Sunday and go to a fellowship group, even if it's two times a week, that's not enough of just hearing the word or talking about the word with other people. Every Christian, if you're going to mature and grow and really live the way that God wants you to. You have to get in the word yourself. You have to be able to to read the Bible to apply it to your life, to have meaningful encounters with God when it's just you and him in the book. And Hebrews five 14 talks about this level of maturity, the solid food we we start out as as babies drink and milk. Just soak it all in the scripture, just learning the ways of God. But then it says we need to mature and solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Can everybody underline or circle constant practice on their day? If I'm going to learn how to do what is right and stay away from evil, stop being the old me and keep giving my life away to Jesus Christ, then constantly my mind is going to need to learn how to discern what is right and wrong. It's going to be renewed all of the time and that happens as I ingest the Bible like food, which is why we're doing some of the day, which is why we're saying every single day we want you to read a song, we want you to getting God's word. We want you to spend meaningful time one on one with the Lord, because if you don't, you might be tempted. Instead of being transformed by the renewal of your mind, you might be tempted to go back to conformity with the way the world's trying to tell you to be, which is to look out for number one, which is you actually we need that daily constant renewing of our mind. And I think we know that. And I think Christians understand that. That's why it's the number one verse. People are looking at on the Bible app, which makes a lot of sense. That's why you would have a Bible app. That's why you would carry your Bible around with you throughout the week, because you realize if I don't keep my mind renewed, I might go back to my old ways.

[00:21:53] And it's such a great time in the life of a Christian when you start to really see what it's like to get your mind refocused on Jesus Christ every single day, and you start to see that power working in your life and you can see yourself maturing. And you know what God wants you to do. And you go and do it. And you feel that energy and power of the Holy Spirit working through you. Man, that is my desire for you, that you would actually be able to give your life away without shrinking back and thinking about yourself and being conformed to this world now that you could be transformed out of that. And it happens by the renewal of your mind. You're not going to be able to serve. You're not going to be able to keep serving if your mind isn't renewed. Back to Romans 12, because we gotta keep moving. We got a lot of ground to cover, really.

[00:22:40] You could break every one of these five points into a whole sermon and lord willing, some day will do that. But today we're trying to get the big picture of this passage and it quickly goes from the big idea of giving your life away as a sacrifice and of keeping yourself renewed so you can be transformed to live this way. And then it starts to get specifically how we're going to do this here in the body of Christ. That is the local church and it starts by some of us. What we need is we need some humility. It says the Romans Chapter 12, verse three by the grace given to me.

[00:23:15] And he hears Paul writing this to the Roman church, acknowledging that he has received grace, that he who is who he is by the goodness of God, for by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.

[00:23:33] To think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned, and now we're gonna get into that. We're all members of one body, the body of Christ, and we're all different members of the body, all different parts of the body. And we all have different spiritual gifts that we use to serve the body and to glorify the Lord. As I'm giving my life away, I have some gifts that God has given me that I can use to serve you and to serve you. And we can all build each other up in the body of Christ. And so we're gonna start talking about the fact that God has gifted you to serve people, that everybody here has a gift that can be used to serve one another. But before we get to what you can do, you need to just humble yourself and and and realize the only reason you have the gift is God gave it to you. It's not really how awesome you are, OK? He's awesome. You not so much. In fact, more like. Not at all. You know, the problem with a lot of the young people is they know they're smart.

[00:24:31] You know what I'm saying? The problem is with some of these athletes, though, like some of the kids on my son's baseball team is, they know they're good baseball players. See, there's a real danger when you know you're good at something because you might want to rely on your natural ability to coast through and get you through. And if you've had the privilege of being one of those smart students or one of those natural athletes, or maybe you're just a person, you know, who's born physically fit and good looking, unlike the rest of us, if you happen to have some natural giftedness, you know, then that there's a temptation inherent in that talent that you might think you're somebody. And you might think that just by you showing up and you being you, you'll be a blessing to all those around your your eyes, the test, or you'll get ahead or you'll get the strike.

[00:25:25] You'll do whatever it is that we're there to do because you have talent and it says, don't think don't think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.

[00:25:33] Says, think of yourself with sober judgment. No. Yeah, maybe God's given you some gifts and maybe he's given you some talents. But let's, first of all, acknowledge where they came from. And then let's secondly, realize if God's really gonna use me to really help somebody else, it's going to be God's power working through me and not my own work.

[00:25:54] So I'm concerned that sometimes people who are gifted to do something, they think they got it just because of who they are getting out of bed in the morning. And that's not going to be good enough to serve God here at this church. Good first. Peter, Chapter four and you'll see what it says, that even though we have gifts, we don't really have the power to use those gifts. We don't really have the strength to use those gifts. So here first, Peter, for where it kind of the most simple passage where it gets into gifts and it just kind of breaks them into two categories here, speaking and serving, like whether you're saying things to people or whether it's things more that you're doing and care more that you're showing either way. First, Peter, chapter four, verse 10, page 1016. In our book, it says, As each has received a gift, you use it to serve one another. That's that's what we're here to talk about this morning. You have a gift. You need to use it to serve one another. That's a command in the scripture for all Christian people to use your gift to serve one another as good stewards. Make sure you're using the grace that God has given to you of God's very grace. And here's how it says we're supposed to do a verse. Eleven, whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God. Hey, don't just try to speak whatever you think there is to speak if you're good at speaking. Speak the words of God.

[00:27:13] Let the power come from the fact that it's God's word.

[00:27:16] Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. So whatever you're doing, if you have that gift, make sure you're doing it by God's power, by God's words. Let it be. God working through you and not you. Trying to do it on your own. So are are here in serve is rely on God's power. We need to start out here with some humility. I'm about to try to build you up and to tell you that we desperately need you here at this church. But before I do that, I just want you to realize you're not that awesome. All right. And so you need to rely. You know, sometimes we go out evangelizing or sometimes we pray. And my concern is at a church that will go so far as to put Bible as its middle name, CompassHB Bible Church, that some people walking around here might think because I know a few verses or because I know some good things to say when I pray that I can just kind of roll in. And I can just kind of blow up that prayer meeting or I can go evangelize to this person because I already know some stuff that's not really what we're interested in.

[00:28:21] We're not interested in someone who has self reliance here at this church. We're interested in someone who's like, am I know what to say and I might be able to help. But if God doesn't speak through me, one thing I know is nothing's going to happen. That's the kind of person we're looking for here. A person who realizes that I'm just a vessel. I'm just a body here to be used by God. And if he doesn't work through me, nothing of spiritual value is going to happen.

[00:28:52] Now, with that said, go back to Romans twelve because it says after humbling you and telling you, hey, evaluate yourself rightly, look at yourself clearly think was sober judgment. Don't think of yourself as higher than you ought to think. All right. Don't be one of these players who just got drafted in the NFL that are common in acting like they're going to take over the league when they haven't even played one game yet. No, have an accurate perspective of yourself is what it's saying. But then it says this is analogy that Paul uses all over the place in the New Testament, particularly when he talks about spiritual gifts that we have and using those gifts in service.

[00:29:34] He likes to talk about this in verse four, Romans Twelvers four as in one body. We have many members and the members do not have all the same function. So we though many where one body in Christ. So there is a unity here. We are all one in Christ, but individually were members one of another.

[00:29:53] So we're all a part of the body of Christ unity. But we're all different parts of that body of Christ. We're all different members of the body diversity. And so that's a clear teaching of Paul that he uses this analogy of the body. You would say you have one body, but if we started to look at all the different parts of your body, we would say, wow, you're really there's a lot of diversity there. That's the idea here in the Bible. That's when it's talking about the church that together. And I hope you feel this here at this church that we are united, that we are a family, that we are all one in Christ, that no one here is any greater or any lesser than anyone else. Here we are all one in Christ. Can I give any man from every moment? But yet some of us are radically different.

[00:30:32] And all of us are bringing something unique to the body. And we need what every single part of the body, what every single member here at this church is, bring in. We need it all.

[00:30:47] There is nobody here who doesn't bring a level of value to this church. In fact, go to First Corinthians 12 because this is maybe the place where he extends the body analogy. This is just a few pages to the right. Nine hundred and fifty nine. First Corinthians twelve. And this is where he really goes off and he gives the fullest lift list of spiritual gifts. And he just really gets into this body analogy like, well, maybe you're the eye or the ear or the mouth. And he's starting to just kind of paint this picture for us.

[00:31:20] And we don't have time to go through all of that, but jump right into the middle of it.

[00:31:24] Of First Corinthians 12, verse 21, verse Corinthians twelve 21.

[00:31:31] This is something I just want everybody at our church to know so clearly that I cannot say to the hand I have no need of you, nor again, to the head to the feet. I have no need of you. On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are. What does it say? They're indispensable. As in, we cannot do without them.

[00:31:56] OK.

[00:31:56] So you could write down next to ah that you are not awesome. OK. You could right now next to V, that you are indispensable.

[00:32:06] In fact, I would write. I would like for you to write that down. I am indispensable to Compass. H. B. That's what it's saying.

[00:32:15] Like whatever it is that you're bringing in. Let me give you the V here, because he can write this on the blank. The V is the various gifts are all of value. Whatever your gift is and there are various gifts, every single one of them has great value here at this church. What I'm trying to tell you is if you have given your life away to Jesus and you are a part of this church, your service, the gifts that you have and you using those gifts here at this church meant they are of indispensable value to the church.

[00:32:49] OK. And no matter how you might think, well, I'm not that good at this and I'm not that good at that. And we've got some people here at the church who are very good at telling you what they're not good at.

[00:32:59] All right.

[00:33:00] And I hear what you're saying and I hear maybe how you feel a little self-conscious and you wonder what you can contribute to the team. And what I want you to hear me saying this morning is that the team really needs you.

[00:33:12] That's what I'm saying. Like, it's indispensible.

[00:33:17] I mean, some of us were joking and we were talking about like parts of the like parts of the body that might be gross or unpleasant. And one of the things that we started talking about was earwax. This this was like our version of fat. Basically, I guess that we were talking about a part of the body that's kind of kind of gross. Like like we don't want people at the church to be earwax that's just sitting around doing nothing. Right. And then I started looking up earwax. Have you ever done a study on this stuff? Because apparently earwax is doing all kinds of great business for you that you never knew. Like, there are dust and dirt particles attacking your eardrum relentlessly. And the earwax are the guardians of the inner ear. And all of this dust and dirt is just coming into your ear. All you don't know. You're not even aware that this is happening. But you are constantly under assault by the elements all around you. And they think a way to get in is through your ear. And what grabs them and holds them down and they stick fast to it. It's your ear wax. And so then when you get that dry, flaky stuff that you kind of get out of there with a Q tip maybe and you kind of flick out of your ear. You know what I'm saying? You're not only getting rid of earwax, but dirt and dust particles that we're trying to take you down. You are vanquishing with a great victory over your foe. That's what's going on. I mean, you start breaking it down. There is no part of your physical body that is not designed of great benefit.

[00:34:51] You don't think you need your pinky toe? Well, try balancing without one. Basically is the way that it works. Say every single part of the body is designed to fulfill a role. You are designed to fulfill a role. Here at this church, you have value here in community with this church. That's why I'm telling you. And if you don't use the gift that you have, this church will never be what it could be without you.

[00:35:24] That's what I'm saying.

[00:35:25] Like, a lot of times, people, they think about this wrong. And I'm kind of in a unique position to understand this, because to a lot of people, their church experiences, what we're doing right now, where you sit down in the seats that you're sitting in right now and everybody's looking up here, and it would seem like I'm a more important person up here because I'm the one that's speaking to us for 45 minutes. Or let's get honest, it's close to an hour most Sundays here at the church. Right. And so it would seem like, well, that guy up there, he's really important. I wish you could see the church from my perspective every Sunday, because this is what I see every Sunday.

[00:36:01] I see you and what I realized as the guy who has the full time blessing of serving here at this church that this church will not be I'm not really going to determine how great this church is. No. You will determine how great this church is.

[00:36:17] Every single part of the body.

[00:36:21] So don't think that somebody who works at the church full time or somebody who's speaking or singing are the most important people, or they might be doing their parts. But everybody plays a part and your part is indispensable. We cannot do without you. If you're one of God's people here at this church, we need you. Then if you really don't think that we need you, please come and set up a meeting with me and I will start listing ways of how valuable you are to this church.

[00:36:52] Because I need you. We all do. We need you to contribute.

[00:36:57] You are a part of the body, and if you don't fulfill your role, if you don't use your gift, are entire church will feel the loss of you.

[00:37:09] There is no one here that can replace what God has designed you to bring to this church. And then it gives us go back to Romans twelve. Just a few pages over here. It gives us now.

[00:37:22] The gifts and a lot of people trip up. I'm Amen before we even read this. And I know we already read it before before we start going through this. What a lot of people get fascinated with when we start to bring up spiritual gifts and there's whole tests you can take, like if you want to be a brave individual, like go on Google later today and like, what is my spiritual gift? And just brace yourself for what's about to come up. All right. Because there's like tests you can take to identify and discover and define the spiritual you. Right. And a lot of people, they can they can just get into paralysis by analysis with what we're about to talk about here, like all the over thinkers are going to rise up in these next few verses. Okay. Because it's like until I identify what my spiritual gift is, I don't really know what to do. And you end up in this place of kind of crippling indecision where it's like, wow, I'm not really sure which one of these is my spiritual gift. And so therefore, I don't really do anything. That's not the point of this passage.

[00:38:27] This is how it's gonna go. You have a gift. Use it.

[00:38:31] That's the idea.

[00:38:32] Not find your gift. Use your gift. In fact, the best way to find your gift is by using it. By serving it. And when you find yourself doing something, well, well, that means you're gifted at it. When you fail. Hey, we'll just redirect you somewhere else. All right. At least then, you know, that's not it. But I know so many people who are waiting for the Lord to some kind of give them some personalized revelation of what their gift is and then they'll take off when that's not the emphasis in any passage that ever talks about gifts. In fact, there is no complete list of gifts. Every time we get a list of deaths of gifts, whether it's First Corinthians twelve, whether it's Romans here, whether it's a Friesians for whether it's First Peter for every list of gifts is different in this scripture. That's supposed to be like some complete list and we pick out of all the options. No, it's just throwing out examples, I think, of the kinds of gifts that God gives through the spirit. And the emphasis is not on what gift you have, but how are you using the gift that you have. That's where the emphasis is at. And so it says here in Romans twelve, verse six, it says, having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Each of us has the grace of God to have a gift. So let us use them. Let's get that down for our last E here.

[00:39:55] Every gift needs to be used.

[00:39:59] That is the point of having a gift to give it away, to use it for the glory of God, to pour it out.

[00:40:10] And so then when we get here is a list of gifts. But notice, even when it gives us the list, it's not really telling us what the gifts are. The emphasis is on the way that you use the gift. OK, so let's just look at them. Let's read them here. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service in our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the one who exhorts in his exhortation, the one who contributes or gives in generosity, the one who leads or administrates with zeal. The one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.

[00:40:42] So there's a list there, some examples. There's some things for you to think about, maybe if you're gifted in or not. But the emphasis is not on do you have the gift or not? The emphasis is on how do you use the gift that you've already got. In fact, I put these gifts on the back of your hand out if you want to look at them there. I gave you the gifts that we got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different gifts given as examples here in this passage. And I gave you the Greek word that goes along with the the gift there. And then I gave you my basic definition of how I would say it there. So prophecy, when we hear prophecy, we think about predicting things that are going to happen in the future. But really a prophet that might be an exciting part of what a prophet does, but a prophet really is just a mouthpiece for God, someone who speaks for gods. Someone who is declaring proclaiming the word of God service. When we think of service, we kind of think of meeting physical needs. It could include that, but could also be caring for people personally, helping people, teaching, interpreting and presenting God's truth to others so that there's a response. Don't call yourself a teacher if nobody's learning or growing or getting saved or arguing with you after your teaching, you're probably not very good at it. If there's no response, exhortation is. Now, that's kind of an intense way to say it. That's like calling somebody out. That's a part of it. You could also look at it as encouraging or comforting. That's to call someone alongside, to come alongside of someone, to get in there with somebody just to strive side-by-side together to share life, exhortation, giving, sharing.

[00:42:25] What is yours could rebel money could involve time. It's just you have something and you're willing to sacrifice it for the benefit of others leading you stand before maybe someone administering and directing and then you got mercy, acts of mercy. You do it with cheerfulness. Why do you need to do acts of mercy with cheerfulness? Because a lot of times you're showing mercy to people who are sad and the people who are suffering and the people who are in jail or people who are in the hospital or people who are in the funeral home. And they need you to come and give them compassion and kindness and to treat them in the same way that God has treated us, because based on his mercy, we give our life away.

[00:43:10] And sometimes people need to see that mercy through us. So those are examples of gifts that you might have.

[00:43:17] And I don't know which one of these gifts you have. Maybe you have multiple some of these gifts. Maybe you're an interesting hybrid of two of these gifts. That's not the issue, what gift you have. The issue is how are you going to use it? How are you going to match your gifts with the needs to serve all around you? And so we're going to pass now our list of need here at the church. The ushers are going to come forward and they're going to start sharing with you a list that we have created here of different areas where we need service. So this is not a spiritual gift list there. Enrollment's 12. We just went through the list of spiritual gifts. This is a need list and it's not every need, but it's a good representation of ways that we need people to use their gifts and serve here at our little church. And so every one of these is an official ministry of the church that is overseen by me or by Pastor Bill. And these are things that we want to encourage people at the church if you think that your gifts might match up with these needs. We would like you to use your gift to serve in these ways. OK, now, the number one way that we want you to be involved here at this church is if you go to this church, we want you to go to a fellowship group. We are trying to be done with church on Sundays only. So if you're going to say, hey, this is my church at CompassHB HB, we love that you're here on Sundays. We want you here another time of the week, sharing with one another, talking in smaller groups about how we're going to apply this to our life. So the main way you can serve the church is by being a part of one of the fellowship groups.

[00:45:04] So if you're trying to figure out why I don't know what my gifts are, how am I going to serve? How am I going to apply this idea of giving my life away in response to God here at this church? If you're not doing a fellowship group, we've made this easy. Go do a fellowship group. That's your application. OK, there. Now we start to give all kinds of areas of service here. And some of them all you really have to do is to be willing. Some of these there's not an extreme amount of giftedness even required. All right. And so basically, we know perhaps that you like eating the donuts and. Coffee. Perhaps you would enjoy coming a little earlier, staying a little. The donuts and coffee don't arrive by themselves. OK, maybe you'd like to help out with that. We think the people, when they come to a church, particularly baby, when they come in and they've never been here before.

[00:45:58] We think a cold, empty door is not the best way to represent the love of Jesus Christ. So you might notice some friendly faces welcoming you in. That's our greeting team. You might notice that we have a terrible parking situation at this church. And so we have some men who get out there with the vests and the wants and they direct you to a parking space. Every Sunday, we could use more of those men. We do not hire a professional cleaning service to clean the church. We would rather spend that money on the gospel of Jesus ringing out. So we're the kind of group of people we clean our own church around here. And let me tell you, your mom doesn't go to this church. It doesn't clean itself. All right. So we need people to show up and clean.

[00:46:40] We do it Monday mornings. And let me tell you, there's a mess when you come in on Monday mornings. And then we try to get it ready on Saturdays.

[00:46:48] We could we could use people to help clean. We we do our own laundry. We could use people to to work with the linens there if you flip it over. We've got our prayer team that people pray. And throughout the week, mostly the group is gathering on Monday nights. We've got people going out evangelizing with our ice cream truck on Saturday mornings and Tuesday nights, spreading the word. We've got the ushers trying to help people get into the seats, make the service flow smoothly. We've got gatekeeper's people who are looking at the security of our church at all times.

[00:47:19] We've got our tech crew. We give a round of applause for our tech crew making that service happen. Unsung heroes there. Our digital team, people taking photos and videos and designing all the graphics and writing code for our Web site. All kinds of needs that we have that maybe you have gifts to serve. We could really use every single one of those.

[00:47:43] If you were to ask the person heading up that ministry banned, what could they use? More people in that ministry desperately is what they would reply. Everybody could use help here at this church. That's one of the greatest strengths of our church, is the amount of need that we have here. Now, add that down below here. These are some real, like discipleship ministries, OK? These are some ministries where you're really now kind of moving into the serious commitment category that Boyd was talking about earlier. I mean, these are ministries where you're going to really end up pouring out your life and specifically touching other lives, specifically younger lives here at the church. And I'm here to tell you, we have a very specific goal for our church. We have a very specific thing that we want to do in year one. We got the building in year two, we got a second pastor. We have a goal for year three of this church. And it's something like everybody here to start praying for. We're calling it three for three that in our third year of this church, we would like to go to a third service on Saturday nights here at the church.

[00:48:50] That's a goal that we would like to see happen. Which means we need more servants to rise up who will are willing to make another service happen. We don't want to do a third service by trying to get all the people who are already serving on Sunday to come and serve on Saturday night. And we want a whole new service of people. So that's why we call it a church service, because it takes service to make it happen.

[00:49:17] Are you going to be a part of the reason that we can expand to a third service? Because you are willing to serve. That would mean we need to do more kids ministry, more youth ministry. Our college ministry does a lot of the service around here at this church. And we need some mature Christians who can invest in the next generation and love on them and lead them and speak the truth to them and love so that the body can be built up or something for you to do here at this church. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go into the fellowship hall right now. And the end of this sermon is gonna be you applying it by going around. And there's gonna be tables for every one of these areas of ministry. And you go, there'll be people there you could talk to about further details. And there's cards you can fill out if you want to sign up to serve in one of these areas. And if you're already serving. Thank you very much. Praise the Lord. I hope this sermon inspires you to keep on serving. All right. But I want you to walk around, see the tables. Maybe you don't know what you're going to do right now, but you don't need to necessarily make a decision right now. You can pray about it. You could take it home. You can always e-mail us here at the church and you could sign up for one of these any time and we'll get you in touch with the right person. But I would like before you leave to go in the fellowship hall to walk around and to just get a sense of the need that we have for people to use their gifts and serve here at this church. Let me pray. Sky, we thank you so much for this clear teaching of how we're supposed to respond and got maybe a teaching that some people here have never really heard clearly before.

[00:50:53] That the response to Jesus Christ is not to think that we have life after we die. We have some kind of a life insurance policy, but it's to love Jesus. It's to give our lives away right now. And here at church, we give our lives away by using the gifts you have given us to serve one another. So I just pray that service of your people, of the body of Christ. That when we serve one another, it's a way that we serve you, that that would always be a part of our life, that we could say that we are using our gifts to serve God. I pray that you will put that on our hearts. Got to pray that nobody here would go sign up because they feel like they have to or they're forced to, or that nobody here would go sign up to, like, show off. What a great person they are. God, I pray that you'll protect us from that, but that we will have people who willingly want to serve you and they want to pour out their life as a sacrifice for your glory because you loved us. Let us love you back. God put that on our hearts. We thank you that Jesus didn't come to be served, but to serve in that he gave his life to save us. God, let us give our lives for others. We pray this in Jesus name and everybody set a Amen.